- Hey gang, this is Deke McClelland.Welcome to Deke's Techniques.This week, I'm going to show you how to combinethis powder blast, along with this dollop of oil paint,to create what's known as a custom dual brushinside of Photoshop. Which in turn,will allow us to paint an organic brushstroke,like this one right here.Which really sums up my feelings today.I'm feeling friendly.Here, let me show you exactly how it works.All right, here's a brushstroke that Ipainted using that custom brushthat we're about to create.

I'll start things off by converting thisglob of oil paint into a brush.Incidentally, all the images that we'llbe seeing in this movie, hail from theFotolia image library, about whichyou can learn more and get dealsat fotolia.com/deke.Now, typically you want your brush to be grayscale.That way you can infuse it with any color you like.I'm going to do that by switchingto the Channels panel and then checking outeach one of my Red, Green, and Blue channels.You can see that the one with the most contrastis the Green channel. I'll go ahead and click on it.

Then, I'll go up to the Image menu, choose Mode,and choose Grayscale.When Photoshop asks me if I want tothrow away the other two channelsI'll go ahead and click OK.Because, of course, I do.Now we need to increase the contrast of the paint.By going up to the Image menu,choosing Adjustment, and then choosing Levels.The reason I'm working destructively,as opposed to applying an adjustment layer,is that I really don't care.This is not a permanent modification.I'll just go ahead and change the black point to 80,so that any luminous level that's 80 or darkerwill become black. Then, I'll tab my way overto the white point value and bring it down to 120,so that anything with a luminous level of 120or brighter will turn white.

Then, I'll click OK.We don't want all this extra space around the brushstroke.To get rid of it, go up to the Image menu,and choose the Trim command.Then, you can select either Top Left Pixelor Bottom Right Pixel, it doesn't matter.You definitely want to trim away all four edges.Make sure all the check boxes are onand then, click OK.To turn it into a brush, go up to the Edit menuand choose Define Brush Preset.Then, let's go ahead and name this guy oil paint,let's say, and then, click OK.

For the second brush, I'll go ahead andswitch over to this red powder image here.Again, I want to keep the Green channelbecause it has the most contrast.I'll go ahead and click on ithere inside the Channels panel.Then, I'll go up to the Image menu,choose Mode, and choose Grayscale.The same steps as before.Of course, I do want to discardthe other channels, so I'll click OK.Now, I want to increase the contrast a little bit.I'm going to do it from the keyboardby pressing control + L, or command + L, on a Mac.Then, I'll increase the black point value to just 10.

I'll tab over to the white point valueand take it down to 235.Then, I'll go ahead and click OK.The reason for these small adjustments isI just want to make sure all of the background is white.Now, I want to trim away all the excess image.All the uninterrupted white background.I'll do that by going up to the Image menuand then choosing the Trim command, once again.Then, because all the settings arethe same way they were a moment ago,I'll go ahead and click OK.Finally, to make it a brush,go up to the Edit menu and choose Define Brush Preset.

Let's go ahead and call this guy powder blast.Not the fastest typist, but there it is,and now, click OK.Now, I'm going to create a new imageby going up to the File menuand choosing the New command.The reason I'm doing this is I want to be able toplay around with my brush as I make it.I'll go ahead and tab down to the Width value,change it to 3,000, and I'll change theHeight value to 2,000.We're talking about pixels, incidentally.You can set the Resolution at anything you want.It really doesn't matter.Then, go ahead and click OK,in order to create that new image.

Now, I'm going to select the brush tool.Notice that Photoshop has already gone aheadand switched me to the most recently created brush,which ends up looking like this.Which I have to say, is less than spectacular.I'm going to go ahead and press control + Z,or command + Z, on a Mac, to undo that change.Then, I'll go up to the Window menu and choose Brush,in order to bring up the Brush panel.Now, what we want to do is click on Brush Tip Shape,in order to select the base shape for the brush.Which, if you're working along with me,should be that last brush you created,which is powder blast.

I don't want it to be this large, however.So, I'll go ahead and take it down to 500 pixels.Now, notice the Spacing value down here.If you increase the space, then you'll pull the dollopsof paint away from each other.So that they don't entirely overlap.However, I'm looking for a little bit of overlap,so I'm going to take that Spacing value down to 30%.Now, I'm going to turn off the Smoothing check boxbecause it's not really helpful, unless you'reupsampling the brush, which we're not.Then, I'll go ahead and turn on the Noise check box,just to give the brush a little bit of grit.

I want the brush to be able to scale on the fly,so I'll go ahead and click on Shape Dynamics,to both select that option and turn it on.Now, notice we have some new optionsover here on the right hand side of the screen.Including Size Jitter. I'm going to go aheadand crank that all the way up to 100%.If you leave Control set to Off, then you'rejust going to get random size variations,as we're seeing down here.I want to be able to control the size,using my stylus, so I'll change Controlfrom Off to Pen Pressure.You're only going to be able tochoose that option if you have apressure sensitive tablet.

Photoshop, for some reason, is not sensing my stylus.If that happens to you, if you have a drawing tabletwith a pressure sensitive stylus,just go ahead and tap on your screen, like so.You'll see that little warning icon disappear.Now, I'll press control + Z, or command + Z, on a Mac,to undo that little brushstroke.Then, I'll go ahead and click on the Dual Brush option.What that allows you to do is maska different brush, inside your current one.I'm going to go ahead and select this guy right here,which is oil paint, as you can see.

That 781 indicates the native size of the brush.I want it to be smaller, so I'm going totake it down to 300 and, for some reason,that doesn't quite work right,if you type it in the row,just watch what's happening on-screen.Then, I'm going to crank up the space value to 50%.I'm going to scatter my brush to the tune of 200%.So, we have a lot of random scattering going on.I want it to happen on both axis,so I'll go ahead and turn on that check box.The axes, by the way, are acrossand along the brushstroke.

Finally, I'll go ahead and click in the Count value,and I'll press the up arrow key,in order to raise it to 2.I'll also turn off the Flip check box.You can flip the brush if you want to,but it's not necessary.Now, notice if I paint inside of the image here,we're seeing these gaps in the brushstroke.Those are gaps that occur between the newest one.Between the dollops of oil paintthat are masked inside of the powder blast.That's a function of setting the Mode to Color Burn.

If you go with any of these darkening modes,such as Multiply, or Darken, or one of the two burns,then you're going to mask one of the strokesinside the other.If you want to darken things up,ironically what you have to do is switch toa lightening mode such as Color Dodge.Then, you end up with a more active brushstroke.What I want, however, is this guy right here,Hard Mix. I'll go ahead and choose it.That way, we get some additional interaction going on.Now, assuming you'd like to usethis Dual Brush in the future,you want to go ahead and save it as a brush preset,by clicking on the Brush Presets button, right there.

Then, drop down to the little page iconat the bottom of the panel.I'm going to go ahead and call this guyPowder & paint, let's say.Then, I'll click OK.That way, I can come back to this brush in the future.Now, I'll go ahead and hide my panel andI'll switch over to that image thatcontains the paper texture. I'll go ahead andswitch back to the Layers panel and I'll turn offthat brushstroke layer. I'll create a new layer,by pressing control + shift + N,or command + shift + N, on a Mac,and I'll just call this layer, writing.Then, I'll click OK.

Now, I'm going to change the Blend mode for this layerfrom Normal to Linear Burn, so we getsome dark interaction going on.Then, I'm going to change my HSB values,up here in the Color panel.If you're not seeing it, you need tochoose Color from the Window menu.If you're not seeing the HSB values,you want to click on the flyout menu icon,and choose HSB Sliders.Then, I'm going to change the Hue value to 44,I'll tab to the Saturation value and change it to 77,then I'm going to raise the Brightness value to 55%.Now, notice that I could just start in paintingwith my mouse, like so, but that's pretty globby,so I'm going to use a tablet instead.

I'm also going to scale the brushstroke down a little bit.We'll just go ahead and press control + Z,or command + Z, on a Mac,in order to undo that brushstroke.We'll press the left bracket key a few times,in order to take the size of the brushfurther down to 250 pixels.I want you to see, here inside the brushes panel,that not only scales the big brush,the one that's ultimately in the background,but it also scales the second brush,the dual brush here down, as well.In other words, it gets scaled proportionally.Now, I'm going to hide the Brush Panel.I'll just go ahead and writesomething on the screen here.

Of course, you can use this brushin any old way that you'd like,but I'm just going to go ahead and write with it.And that friends, is how you createa custom dual brush, with which you can doanything that you like, here inside Photoshop.All right, if you're a member of lynda.com,and if not, lynda.com/deke gets you 10 free days,then I have a follow-up movie,in which I show you how to take your custom brushand we're going to give it some texturein order to produce this more gritty effect, right here.

If you're waiting for next week,we're going to take this gritty textured brushand we're going to use it to paint acustom frame around a photograph.Deke's Techniques, each and every week.Keep watching.

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Author

Updated

2/13/2018

Released

1/13/2011

This course is a collection of short Photoshop and Illustrator projects and creative effects that can be completed in ten minutes or less. The series is taught by computer graphics guru Deke McClelland, and presented in his signature step-by-step style. The intent is to reveal how various Photoshop and Illustrator features can be combined and leveraged in real-world examples so that they can be applied to creative projects right away.

Skill Level Intermediate

116h 46m

Duration

2,345,940

Views

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Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?

A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.